I know this is awful and I hope y'all don't hate me, but I found Winnie on Craig's List. This was a guy (local) who had a female bully that he bred to his friend's male bully and she had a litter of pups. I know I broke the rule of no backyard breeders. I did see mama, who was very friendly and still letting the pups nurse at almost 8 weeks old! I asked about health issues, skin problems, and cherry eye. The guy assured me that neither mom or dad had any of these issues and I took his word for it.
It was funny, when I first called the guy, he wanted to meet me somewhere. I said if I couldn't come see the puppies and their mom at his house, I didn't want the puppy. He said his parents were afraid to have someone to come to their house from Craig's List! We ended up going to his house.
This kind of brings up an issue about bulldog puppies though. Most people know they should look for a reputable breeder for a puppy. We don't want to encourage back yard breeding and certainly don't want to support pet stores, who are notorious for getting their puppies from puppy mills. And those online sites where you pay the money and they ship you a puppy are terrible! When I started researching breeders, some of whom I knew, none of them had any puppies available at the time. I think the demand for bullies is way higher than there are litters available from reputable breeders and I think that's one reason people end up buying from questionable breeders, or importers, or puppy mills, or whatever they find online. A lot of those online puppies are very expensive and likely to have more than their fair share of health issues, but people still pay the big bucks for them. It's too bad.
Anyway, I don't know why I got on such a rant on a simple poll question! I guess justifying why I got Winnie the way I did. Sweet Winnie will never be a show dog--we didn't want one. So far she doesn't have any health issues, but that's always kind of a crap shoot with Bulldogs. And she did need a home....
